Pawlenty issues exec order blocking state requests for ObamaCare funds

posted at 8:27 pm on August 31, 2010 by Ed Morrissey

ObamaCare sometimes seems like Mark Twain’s comment about the weather, and how everyone complains but no one does anything about it. Minnesota’s Tim Pawlenty opened up a new front on opposition to the federal takeover of health care by issuing an executive order to block state requests for ObamaCare funds. Calling the program “an explosion of federal spending” that does nothing to address the actual causes of rising costs in health care, Pawlenty drew a line in the sand between Minnesota and the White House:

Republican Gov. Tim Pawlenty Tuesday ordered all state agencies to not to submit applications to any health care funding from the federal government related to the health care overhaul.

Any applications must be either required by law or approved by the governor’s office. …

“Obamacare is an intrusion by the federal government into personal health care matters and it’s an explosion of federal spending that does nothing to make health care more affordable,” Pawlenty said in a news release.

The Star-Tribune has the executive order in full at the link above. Time’s Mark Halperin gives Pawlenty high marks for “clever 2012 positioning”:

Pawlenty’s move allows him to argue that he stood on the frontlines as an elected official and tried to thwart the law through aggressive means. And it allows him to stoke the contrast he and his strategists most want to make with Mitt Romney, whose support for a similar health care measure in Massachusetts continues to bedevil him with many Republicans.

Alternately or even simultaneously, it could be that Pawlenty just thinks ObamaCare is bad policy, and especially bad for the states. After all, Democrats in Congress “balanced” ObamaCare mainly by pushing the uninsured into Medicaid, whose costs get borne mainly by the states. It also tramples all over the efforts Minnesota has made in addressing health-care costs in the state by dumping a new load of federal mandates into the mix.

This could easily become an issue in the upcoming Minnesota gubernatorial election. Remember, 54% of likely voters in Ramussen’s July poll favored repealing ObamaCare, while only 40% opposed such an idea. I haven’t seen much since then on the question; the last Rasmussen poll didn’t ask the question, and neither the Strib nor MPR polls did, either. Dayton would be certain to void Pawlenty’s executive order, but Emmer would probably keep it in place, arguing that it will allow Minnesota to keep from getting too deeply embedded in the system while challenges to its constitutionality and efforts by a new Congress to defund it proceed apace.

In any event, at least one politician decided to take some action rather than just talk about it. When a Republican House replaces Nancy Pelosi as Speaker next year, we will almost certainly see more action. In the meantime, it would be good to see more governors following Pawlenty’s lead, in those states where such moves are legal.

Implementing a bill as unwieldy as the PPACA was bound to be a complex, frustrating process. But because the law relies heavily on state governments for implementation, and because, as we’ve already seen with the various suits challenging the law’s constitutionality, a number of those state governments are led by politicians who would like to see the law struck down, the implementation phase for this law is going to be especially messy.

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In any event, at least one politician decided to take some action rather than just talk about it.

C’mon guys, gotta have more follow suit – Bring it on!!!!!!
Noticed in the rasmussen over the weekend the poll #’s supporting repeal of obamacare are actually going up from 54 recently to 58%!! Gota gtet this atrocity completely repealed!!!

Awesome T Paw not take that annoying popup off my hotair. Whoever wants to move to Minnysoota look again their brains are frost bitten up there. Frankin, A wrestler there nuts who think their oh so much more enlightened than us rubes

Anyone seen FrankenTard lately?? They got the Great MN Get Together going on…(Great MN Human Ant Pile)…2 years ago he was wandering his sorry a$$ all over the place out there…Did he move back to New York??

Crazy idea: Let’s start getting amendments passed to State constitutions prohibiting them from accepting federal money that has any restriction other than what that money can be used for. No matching funds, no requirement for an existing program, no legal penalties to force a state’s citizens to bend to federal will, etc. It would be fun watching Congress critters explain voting for programs from which their constituents are forbidden from gaining any benefit.

Awesome T Paw not take that annoying popup off my hotair. Whoever wants to move to Minnysoota look again their brains are frost bitten up there. Frankin, A wrestler there nuts who think their oh so much more enlightened than us rubes

Face it people, at the end of day the guy standing is going to be Pawlenty. He’s the only one without a fatal flaw.

That’s gonna perturb people who think he’s a RINO, but he’s the only guy with experience who wants the job, who has conservative creds, less than 3 wives, has a chance to win the primaries and the general, and who isn’t a Mormon.

Even if you don’t like him, take consolation in the fact that he isn’t a card-carrying commie, and he seems to like the country too.

Last time I looked no one was forcing anybody to move here. Think of us what you like.

gophergirl on August 31, 2010 at 8:50 PM

OK I apologize and take that back! not all Minnesotans are nuts just my two sisters in Minneapolis and their like minded friends who gave us Franken and the wrestler dude.
Good move by T Paw but please take the mouse over thing off my hotair its annoying and does nothin to endear him

By January the Obama “Justice” Department will be up to its knees in Congressional subpoenas for testimony in the greatest money laundering scheme ever….otherwise known as “The Stimulus” package.
Follow the money Boys & Girls…from the U.S. Treasury to GM to the UAW to the Democratic Party. Voila!
From Corporate shakedowns to settlement funds to ACORN. Voila!
And a dozen other rat lines all over this country, this administration and its “Justice” Department and a dozen other agencies have funnelled money thru all kinds of cutouts and intermediaries and into the coffers of every lefty organization they can find. They can’t print the stuff fast enough!
Watergate was a fender bender next to this train wreck!!!

Interesting summary Mr, Morrisey, except here Gov Pawlenty just got in the way of people getting their money from the Fed. Sure they might hate ObamaCare, but when it comes to getting a check for services, they are going to see it differently. So its a risky gambit to convince these folks that OC is bad, and we can’t take the Feds monies.

Which brings me to the other side of the coin, Minnesota should send the Feds taxes MINUS Minnesotas contributions to OC(medicare). THAT would ignite the powder keg of C1vilWar2.

Face it people, at the end of day the guy standing is going to be Pawlenty. He’s the only one without a fatal flaw.

That’s gonna perturb people who think he’s a RINO, but he’s the only guy with experience who wants the job, who has conservative creds, less than 3 wives, has a chance to win the primaries and the general, and who isn’t a Mormon.

Even if you don’t like him, take consolation in the fact that he isn’t a card-carrying commie, and he seems to like the country too.

notagool on August 31, 2010 at 8:55 PM

That sounds an awful lot like “he’s electable”.

Which sounds perfectly reasonable until you remember it was the rallying cry for Bob Dole, John Kerry and John McCain.

I haven’t been a big fan of the ‘Paw, but have to give him very high marks for this move…so long as he sticks with it when the heat comes. Show a little of Jan Brewer’s backbone, and the ‘Paw scores with this one.